In less than two weeks, FDA is holding a Demo Day at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in Maryland. The agency will be awarding $500,000 to the team that can develop a technique or technology that creates “significant improvements” in the speed at which FDA can detect Salmonella in fresh, minimally processed produce.
A few months ago, Capt. Palmer Orlandi, Ph.D., senior science advisor at FDA’s Office of Veterinary Medicine, describes exactly why FDA is offering such a hefty prize. It can take between three and five days to detect Salmonella in product, and with full serotyping, it can take as long as two to three weeks to obtain results.